[PATCH 5/6] Documentation: merge: add a section about fast-forward
From: Jonathan Nieder <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:47:59
Subsystem:
documentation, the rest · Maintainers:
Jonathan Corbet, Linus Torvalds
Novices sometimes find the behavior of 'git merge' in the fast-forward case surprising. Add a section to the manual to describe it more thoroughly. Cc: Petr Baudis <redacted>, Cc: Junio C Hamano <redacted> Cc: Thomas Rast <redacted> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <redacted> --- Documentation/git-merge.txt | 31 ++++++++++++++++++------------- 1 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/git-merge.txt b/Documentation/git-merge.txt
index 8950aa4..ec9c6d3 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-merge.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-merge.txt@@ -82,6 +82,20 @@ the same state that would result from the merge anyway.) If all named commits are already ancestors of `HEAD`, 'git merge' will exit early with the message "Already up-to-date." +FAST-FORWARD MERGE +------------------ + +Often the current branch head is an ancestor of the named commit. +This is the most common case especially when invoked from 'git +pull': you are tracking an upstream repository, you have committed +no local changes, and now you want to update to a newer upstream +revision. In this case, a new commit is not needed to store the +combined history; instead, the `HEAD` (along with the index) is +updated to point at the named commit, without creating an extra +merge commit. + +This behavior can be suppressed with the `--no-ff` option. + include::merge-strategies.txt[]
@@ -94,19 +108,10 @@ HOW MERGE WORKS A merge is always between the current `HEAD` and one or more commits (usually, branch head or tag). -Two kinds of merge can happen: - -* `HEAD` is already contained in the merged commit. This is the - most common case especially when invoked from 'git pull': - you are tracking an upstream repository, have committed no local - changes and now you want to update to a newer upstream revision. - Your `HEAD` (and the index) is updated to point at the merged - commit, without creating an extra merge commit. This is - called "Fast-forward". - -* Both the merged commit and `HEAD` are independent and must be - tied together by a merge commit that has both of them as its parents. - The rest of this section describes this "True merge" case. +Except in a fast-forward merge (see above), the branches to be +merged must be tied together by a merge commit that has both of them +as its parents. +The rest of this section describes this "True merge" case. The chosen merge strategy merges the two commits into a single new source tree.
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1.6.6